


The Shadows Bring the Starlight

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: M/M, lowkey homophobia via fermet, other than that ? surprisingly not full of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Elmer and Huey stargazing aboard the Advena Avis.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have Tou to thank for bringing up this idea, which I then poorly executed.

Huey stirs at the rude  _creak_  of wooden floorboards. He opens his eyes, and in the low light sees exactly what he expects to: the familiar silhouette of Elmer looms at the foot of his bed, and he feels groggy enough that this might be a figment of his nightmares but knows reality too well to convince himself of it. Unfortunately, the possibility of his roommate disturbing him at ungodly hours of the night is all too _real_. 

Sheets rustle as he props himself up, and the sound seems to alert Elmer to his waking; the silhouette turns its head and there is the gleam of blue eyes in the darkness. His hand moves to fumble for his matches, something between a groan and a bitter laugh escaping his lips.

“Can you do nothing _quietly_?”

“If it’s any consolation I don’t think you really _need_ any more beauty sleep.”

“Nevermind that. Light a match, will you? I can’t find mine.” 

The silhouette complies. Shadowy hands flick a match to light and reveal a toothy smile and the shine of golden hair. Huey sits upright to hand him a candle from the side table, and the small light grows steadier. 

The soft glow gives his movements an ethereal quality. Huey is a beautiful person by daylight, but by candlelight he looks more a _painting_  of one: lose, dark hair drapes over his shoulders, framing pale skin made flawless by the kind effect of the flame. 

Elmer opens his mouth to say, half in jest,  _I was right, you_ don’t _need any more beauty sleep_ , but Huey also opens his mouth to speak, for vastly different reasons, and beats him to the punch.

“Where are you going at _this_ hour?”

Elmer has one arm in his coat, and one hand on the doorknob, and one foot already in the corridor. Through the thin fabric of his sleepwear Huey can feel the cold chill of the ocean breeze. He suppresses a shiver and pulls his sheets back up to his chin. 

“I thought I’d take a dip in the sea!”

“I’m not sure whether you’re being serious. I wouldn’t put it past you.” 

Elmer laughs, which is as _telling_ a response as a dog barking. 

“Come with me and I’ll show you!”

“The sea? I’ve seen rather enough of it." Huey brushes his hair back from his face, tying a ribbon to keep it in place as he speaks. 

“Not the sea — that was a joke.” Welcome clarification at last. Huey narrows his eyes at Elmer’s smiling face, and finds it, even for all his newfound world-weariness, as difficult to read as ever. “Just come with me!”

He pauses to consider — but they both know it’s for show. He is reluctant, dragging himself out of bed with a deep, exasperated sigh, pulling his coat on laboriously, but there is never any doubt in his mind that he will follow Elmer out the door. 

* * *

When they’d met six years ago they were none too different in build, but somewhere down the line Elmer had overtaken him in bulk while he remained a lanky thing, and Huey has always wondered why — why a boy with no particularly interest in athletics would seem to be so _spritely_. He watches him bound up the ladder ahead of him while he lags behind and concludes that scaling trees must have prepared him for this; he contents himself with finding an answer to at least _this_  small riddle. 

He heaves himself up into the crow’s nest, finding Elmer perched on the railing. His legs rock back and forth haphazardly, and Huey surprises himself with the impulse to pull him away from the edge. 

“I hope you realise you’re not immortal _yet_.”

“Are you worried about me? I’ll get down if you are.”

“I’m not worried about you.” 

There’s no _point_  worrying about a person like Elmer, he reminds himself, sitting down with his back against the mast. 

“What is it you wanted to show me?”

The chill is worse up here — even so close to the shore it is colder in the open sea, waves crashing against the sides of the boat with sprays of water that reach even the tallest mast. 

“If you woke me just to show off what a talented climber you are I’ll be rather disappointed.” He chuckles a chuckle that does not suggest amusement at all, but Elmer turns his head just to see him _smile_. 

“You won’t be disappointed,” he assures, with such certainty that Huey feels inclined to believe it. He swings his legs over so that he is sat facing Huey; this way, Huey thinks, if he falls he’ll break his neck first instead of his legs. “Look up!”

 _Look up_ , he says, and Huey does. 

Huey has seen stars before, but — _no_. 

These stars convince Huey that he has _never_ seen stars. 

Lotto Valentino is a city of industry — good and bad — it is a city of metalwork and drug production, and the air is smoggy and their city’s sky is polluted with the same filth that fills the lungs of their city’s children, and Huey realises all at once that he has misunderstood what a _clear, starry sky_  is up until the moment he sees one that has never been touched by man. 

Is this what he would have seen if he had taken the time to stargaze during his travels? 

It’s as though his vision had been blurred, and now, granted sudden clarity, what he sees is shockingly _vivid_. He had known in theory that stars burned different colours, that they formed maps, constellations — but now he can trace them all _himself_ , connect the dots that bind the universe together. 

 _Perhaps it would have been worth it_. 

“Is that a smile?”

It _is_ , but Huey does not know himself the way the corners of his mouth curve. The last time he’d seen a night sky half this bright he had a mother and all he knew how to _do_  was smile — and for a moment he lives in that world again, until reality crashes over him in a wave. He glances down from the heavens to the boy perched above him, beaming like the moon, studying him only long enough to know that he is staring at _him_  more than the stars. 

“Thank you for waking me.” 

“I didn’t mean to."

“Thank you for being obnoxiously noisy.”

“As long as it makes you smile!”

Elmer slips from the railing — fortunately in the right direction — and sits beside him. Shoulders brush, a comforting warmth in the cold night. 

“To tell the truth, it’s a welcome distraction,” a beat, “I dreamt that I died tonight,” _and you should have seen the smile I wore_.He does not know why he says this; he does not know why he leaves _this_  out. Out of the corner of his eye, Elmer turns his head, but Huey keeps his eyes locked on the sky.

“I wish you’d told me sooner. If I knew you’d had a nightmare I would have tried extra hard to cheer you up.”

“It wasn’t a _nightmare_. It was… a _dream_. It felt pleasant, I suppose.”

“ _Ah_ …” Elmer nods, understanding sinking in. “She was there, I’m guessing?”

“She’s always there,” _and she’s never here._

He lowers his chin, acknowledging Elmer with a brief glance. 

“Don’t mistake me, my mind is made up. I have no intention of ending my life — but I wonder what I will do with eternity if I cannot find her in it.” 

Elmer makes a thoughtful hum, low and soft, and leans his head back against the mast. 

“Pick a star!”

“ _Excuse me_?”

He smiles broadly, bumping his shoulder against Huey’s. 

“I’ve read a few books on astrology,” he explains. “I can read your future from the stars, then you won’t have to worry about what comes next!”

“A ridiculous notion.” Huey laughs, dubious of the validity of astrology and quite certain that Elmer has no understanding of it— but he reminds himself that they may, come tomorrow, summon a demon who will grant them immortality. There is a line _somewhere_ between science and magic; he has yet to find it. “But a good one.”

He raises his hand to point to a star, small but bright. “That one.”

Elmer closes his eyes, brow furrowed in deep thought. Huey cannot imagine why one would have to _close their eyes_  to read the future from the stars, but he had decided long ago not to question anything this man does.

“I can see it clearly! You’re going to bring Monimoni back, and then you two are going to be happy for the rest of eternity.”

“Ah, Elmer, I believe your fortune telling may be somewhat biased.”

“The stars don’t lie.”

“I should hope not. I’ll hold them to that promise.”

Huey, shaking his head in bemusement, lays his hand over Elmer’s, and for a moment everything is still and silent as the sky above them.

“So it _is_  you two. There’s a bad a storm on the way. I’ve been told to clear the deck —”

Huey cranes his neck to have a look at the intruder — though he would know him from voice alone. His smile grows more defined and less genuine.

The man, for his part, sneers in spite of his polite demeanour at the sight of their hands intertwined. 

“I hope I’m not _interrupting_ anything.”

“Hardly.” Huey unlatches his fingers from Elmer’s and rises to his feet. “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll return to our cabin.”

Fermet’s expression contours into something saccharine, sickly in its sweetness.

“No need to thank me. I would hate it if something were to happen to you.”

“Your concern is, as always, much appreciated.”

“It is a kindness I am happy to extend.”

“What would the world do without men like you, Fermet?”

The peaceful stillness is replaced with a stillness of a different sort — stiff and unwelcoming; two snakes sitting in wait for a reason to bite, serpentine smiles extending false courtesy.

“It’s nice to see you, Fermet! I hate to leave when you’re smiling like that, but we should be going now anyway. Huey gets grumpy if he doesn’t get enough sleep!” He nudges the other man with his elbow, breaking the uncomfortable silence with laughter. Huey gives him a look that reads somewhere between _shut up_ and _thank you_.

 

They make their way back down to the deck, and Elmer does not bring up how painfully _feigned_  Huey’s smile had been, and Huey does not bring up how grateful he is that Elmer had pulled him away. They speak of the future and eternity and the stars. 

“Do you always waste so much time _stargazing_?”

“Not always, but — I do _like_  it. You know, no matter where you are in the world you’ll always see the same stars? Here, in the motherland, even in Lotto Valentino if you squint! That means there are thousands of people out there smiling up at the same sky.”

“You’re beginning to sound like a poet.” Huey hops down from the last rung of the ladder. “Not one I would read, of course.”

In spite of his words, he stores this notion away somewhere in the back of his mind. They will part ways soon — he knows this. There is no way he can be the sort of person he _must_  be to achieve his goals if Elmer is standing at his side, but he feels some affinity for this thought; perhaps, ocean’s away, they will find themselves looking up at the same sky. Perhaps he could make room in his life for stargazing. 

* * *

Many years later, in his concrete prison cell, Huey will be asked whether after all this time he misses the sun — and he will know his answer without a beat of hesitation: _no_ , no, not the _sun_ , but by god he misses the _stars_. 


End file.
